Seth Barnes Jul 7, 2007 8:00 PM

Comfortably numb

In case no one's asked you a provocative question lately, I've got four of them for you. Take your pick: When was the last time you did something f...

Subscribe


In case no one's asked you a provocative question lately, I've got four of them for you. Take your pick:

When was the last time you did something for the first time?

Do you care more about other people's expectations or what's right?

Have you paid attention to your dreams and followed them at a great cost?

What is the rut that is you?

It used to be that survival was an issue. In prior generations, you got a job because if you didn't, starvation was an option. Now, food takes up just 6% of the average person's budget. We have the luxury of following our dreams because failure has little downside.
We're not going to starve. The only thing at stake is our destiny.

But we're groomed to be timid, risk-averse souls. We're anesthetized, made numb to a world of possibilities. Here's how it often happens:

1. We become more concerned about getting a degree than discovering a call.

2. We sell ourselves into slavery to school loans, car payments, and a mortgage.

3. Along the way, we find ourselves buying stuff because advertisements tell us to.

4. We find ourselves far from our spiritual home - the narrow walk of faith Jesus described.

Without realizing it, all the big decisions in our life were made by somebody else. We never really decided to settle down and live the American dream.

It just happened. And we find ourselves leaning our ladders against walls that someone else built. Climbing up them, peering over the edge, only to discover they are facades.

A voice nags us along the way up our ladders, "Is this all there is?" It asks. We sense the answer is, "No," but we're too comfortable to do anything about it.

Comments


Comment created and will be displayed once approved.

Related Blogs

Edit the voices in your head

Edit the voices in your head

Writing from the Paris airport with French being spoken all around me, I can thi...

By Seth Barnes
Getting perspective from a year's worth of coal

Getting perspective from a year's worth of coal

Yeah, anybody invested in the market is probably a lot poorer than a month ago.�...

By Seth Barnes
How to live simply and love extravagantly

How to live simply and love extravagantly

Here's a book that will give you some practical steps to become more radical in ...

By Seth Barnes

Related Races (3)

Central America | Semesters | August 2026

Central America | Semesters | August 2026

Southeast Asia | Semesters | August 2026

Southeast Asia | Semesters | August 2026

Spain | Alumni | June 2026

Spain | Alumni | June 2026

Next article

Raising the dead in India

Our AI generated post content for you!

Here's a suggested caption you can copy and tweak.